Let’s talk some baseball, folks. The Rockies have played seven games and won five of them. They’ve played four games on the road and won all four of them. They are off to an awesome start.

My favorite part of Opening Day and, by extension, Opening Week and the weeks that follow is the free-flowing optimism that permeates most every team and fan base in the league. When the Rockies jump out to a quick start, their fans fit the mold. Hope springs eternal. Optimism overflows.

With that in mind, I’m taking a stance with which I am verify unfamiliar. I’m playing the BringDown card. This is not something I’m wont to do when it comes to the Colorado Rockies, but hear me out.

Last season, sometime in mid-May, I was convinced the Rockies would finish above .500 and were a playoff contender. They finished the year 66-96.

This year the Rockies have to play 155 more games over the course of five and a half months. Things have gone well in the first week, but I’m not ready to move off my prediction of somewhere between 69 and 75 wins for the Rockies.

The reasons will not shock you: 1) Starting Pitching. 2) Injuries.

While it’s encouraging that the Rockies are 5-2 without any contribution from Jorge De La Rosa, the starting rotation is just too shaky and shallow for the team to be a contender. If Kyle Kendrick’s first two starts are any indication, his year will be a roller coaster. Eddie Butler has great stuff but hasn’t really been able to harness it in his two starts. Jordan Lyles has been solid. Tyler Matzek was pretty unimpressive in the Home Opener. JDLR should provide stability when he returns soon, but it’s just hard to envision those five guys leading a baseball team to a winning record.

And of course, the ever-present elephant in the room is hanging above our heads like a balloon we’re all hoping doesn’t pop. Injuries are going to happen. I hate to think about these things, but Precautionary Measures will transition into Day-To-Days, which will transition into 15-Day DLs, which will transition into 60-Day DLs. All we can do is hope the key players don’t miss more than a week or two at a time. If that’s the case, I do think the Rockies can outperform a lot of expectations, including my own. But I’ve learned over the years that a casual scroll of Twitter or an unexpected notification from my CBS Sports app or a text from a friend with similar Rockies-fan interests can quickly ruin my week and change the entire course of the Rockies’ season.

(As an aside, if the Rockies’ shortstop does go down, Daniel Descalso hasn’t done much to instill a lot of confidence as a backup.)

Now I want to be clear that I am not saying you shouldn’t enjoy these games and take pleasure in these wins and wonder What If?. Indeed, the seven games the Rox have played thus far have been an absolute blast. (Well, five of them at least.)

Take for example, the third game of 2015. which brought probably my favorite moment of the first week when Carlos Gonzalez hit a ball really far. I love CarGo’s I’m-pretty-sure-I-just-hit-that-ball-to-the-moon pimp strut so if you need me, I’ll be at my desk watching this GIF for the next few hours. The gorgeous swing! The bat drop! The stare! The strut!

One interesting thing I noticed after watching that about 500 times: Immediately after the swing, the camera-person zooms out and starts to pan left under the assumption that Carlos is about to, like, run to first. Nah, bro. Not when you bounce it off the scoreboard about 30 feet up in dead center.

The official distance on that homer was 466 feet, but as Drew Goodman said on the broadcast, it sure seemed closer to 500.

But you get my point. That was fun! That’s vintage Carlos Gonzalez, something we haven’t seen much of lately. And vintage CarGo is a treat to watch. If you can’t get pumped and enjoy the hell out of that home run, you’re simply not a Rockies fan.

Through seven games, the reasons for optimism are there. The lineup looks really, really good. (DJ La Maheiu is out there for his defense and even he’s hitting .517!) The non-LaTroy Hawkins bullpen has been pretty much perfect. Walt Weiss is using defensive shifts! Walt Weiss is not messing around! (If you blow a couple saves, you’re not the closer anymore.) And yes, the starting pitching has been more than acceptable.

These are all good things with potentially positive implications, so if you feel so inclined, live it the hell up. All I’m saying is the more level-headed, less volatile among us might also see reasons to curb that enthusiasm and measure that optimism.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to watch that Carlos Gonzalez homer a few more times.

Some of the other notable stuff from baseball’s first week:

The schedule-makers didn’t do the Rockies any favors in scheduling them to play the Giants in the Giants’ first home game since winning the World Series. (The Rox won anyway.) The celebration featured Madison Bumgarner bringing in the World Series pennant… on a horse… on the field… for real.

You might not have heard, but Jordan Speith had a pretty good weekend. This is my favorite moment, when he found his grandpa for a long hug after WINNING THE MASTERS. That’s not something you see too often.

Also studly from Augusta: Jack Nicklaus’ shot in the Par Three contest on Wednesday afternoon.

Douche of the week:

This douche is hilarious. HAM IT UP, PAL! YOU DID IT! … Just maybe wait til you cross that finish line first.

Only one game remains in the NBA regular season for most teams, so these are likely to be your final Tankandings. The Nuggets will finish with the seventh-worst record in the league. The day Brian Shaw was fired, they were 20-39, meaning they’ve played almost-.500 basketball (10-12) under Melvin Hunt. Before that stretch of terrible wins, they had the sixth-worst record in the league and appeared poised for a push to catch either the Magic or Lakers, or both. Stupidly, the Nugs went in the opposite direction. So much more could have been accomplished.

With the seventh-worst record, the Nuggets will have a 4.3 percent chance at landing the #1 pick and a 15 percent chance at sneaking into the top-3.

Minnesota, .198, 16-65

New York, .210, 17-64

Philadelphia, .222, 18-63

L.A. Lakers, .259, 21-60

Orlando, .309, 25-56

Sacramento, .346, 28-53

Denver, .370, 30-51

Detroit, .384, 31-50

And finally, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, these will not ever get old.

That dad is awesome.

Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for readin’. See ya next week.

***

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

Welcome to the 104th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where the dreary winter is officially behind us. Let’s get into it…

As always, the health of Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki will be key to any success the Rockies hope to have. (Roy Chenoy / USA Today Sports)

“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I‘ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”-Rogers Hornsby

It’s spring. Baseball is back. And as the 2015 Major League Baseball season begins, it’s officially time to turn the page and focus on the past time of America. Despite what you may have heard, baseball is still wildly popular in this country. Revenues are through the roof, attendance is healthy, and the game is going strong.

To kick off this joyous occasion, I’m providing you with everything you can expect from the Rockies this year, from their record, to the broadcasts, to the inevitable injuries, to CarGo’s WAR. Some of these are educated guesses, some are based off of historical tendencies, and some come simply from a gut feeling or hunch. And yes, I realize I’m a day late with this post, but that’s what happens when things take place on Mondays. (Also, I’m pretty much stealing this format from this Will Leitch column, but that’s okay.) Off we go…

The Rockies will begin the season with a 10-0 victory over the Brewers in Milwaukee behind seven shutout innings from Kyle Kendrick and big days at the plate from Corey Dickerson, Nolan Arenado and Troy Tulowitzki. (I wrote this one on Sunday, promise!)

The Rockies will improve upon last year’s dismal 66-96 season and win at least 68 games.

The Rockies will not improve all that much; they’ll win fewer than 76 games.

Despite my best efforts, early success from the Rockies will SUCK ME IN and trick me into being optimistic until things fall apart in June. (Or May… Or April.)

When the Rockies are at Coors Field, they will hit the crap out of the ball.

When the Rockies are on the road they will hit less of the crap out of the ball.

The Rockies’ offense on the road will not be as disgustingly-awful as last year’s, which produced at a .228/.279/.357 output.

Troy Tulowitzki will play in fewer than 160 games.

Troy Tulowitzki will play in fewer than 150 games.

Troy Tulowitzki will play in fewer than 140 games.

Troy Tulowitzki will play in fewer than 130 games.

Troy Tulowitzki will play in more than 100 games. (He played in 91 last year.)

This will not be enough games to carry the Rockies into playoff contention.

During the 100-130 games he plays, Troy Tulowitzki will be a top-2 player in the game.

Carlos Gonzalez will play in more than 140 games. (He played in 70 last year.)

Carlos Gonzalez will vastly improve upon his completely lost 2014 season (-0.7 WAR) and post a WAR around 4.

Carlos Gonzalez will steal at least 20 bases.

Nolan Arenado will make his first All Star team.

Nolan Arenado will hit at least 23 home runs.

Nolan Arenado will win his third Gold Glove in his third season.

Corey Dickerson will continue to hit and hit and hit and hit.

Corey Dickerson will finish with a top-5 National League batting average.

Justin Morneau will again hit over .330 against right-handed pitching.

Justin Morneau will have fewer than 120 plate appearances against left-handed pitching.

Injuries, overall, will be less of a story and factor over the course of 2015 than they were in 2014.

When Justin Morneau scoops a low throw, one of the Root broadcasters will compare him to Todd Helton.

Ryan Spilborghs will turn out to be the most enjoyable color commentator on Root Sports.

Root Sports will continue to scroll “Toyota Talk” at the bottom of the screen during games.

The person in charge of this decision will not be fired, as he should be.

George Frazier will talk about Oklahoma during a broadcast.

Jenny Cavnar will continue her excellent work in the studio and at Coors.

People on Twitter will complain about Drew Goodman’s play by play even though he’s pretty damn good.

When the Rockies have early success or win a few games or series in a row, about half of the Denver media will prove they have no idea what is going on with the Rockies when they are forced to focus on the local nine for a few days.

The Denver media will be stoked when July rolls around because they can focus on the Broncos’ stretching and jogging around in shorts for a few weeks before playing pretend games for a month.

Jeff Bridich will seriously consider trading Troy Tulowitzki, but the young pitching staff and position playing prospects will show just enough promise to convince Bridich the team can contend in 2016 with its current core.

Jeff Bridich will seriously consider trading Carlos Gonzalez, but the young pitching staff and position player prospects will show just enough promise to convince Bridich that the team can contend in 2016 with its current core.

After the year, we still won’t be positive that Jeff Bridich knows what he’s doing, but we’ll all be a little more confident in the guy.

With Bill Geivett gone, we will begin to see Walt Weiss’ true colors as a manager, though I’m not sure what those are yet.

The $2 bag of peanuts I have been buying from the same guy outside of the home plate entrance for just about 20 years will somehow be slightly smaller than last year.

The new metal detectors will make getting in to any remotely popular game any time near the scheduled first pitch an absolute disaster. (Especially on Friday. That’s gunna take hours.)

Some half-drunk 22-year-old will stand in my section at a game and emplore the masses to start The Wave.

I will politely request that this person put a stop to his actions.

The Tooth Trot will still be a thing.

Dinger will jump around behind home plate during the 9th inning.

Dinger will continue to be an embarrassment.

Dinger will conintue to be the worst mascot in sports.

The Party Deck will be packed on a nightly basis with people who literally could not tell you what team the Rockies are playing.

Coors Field will continue to be the most beautiful ball park in the country.

I will go to Coors Field on a sunny summer Sunday afternoon or an impossibly pleasant Friday night and I’ll sneak into great seats and I’ll sip beer and I’ll crush peanut shells with my sandals and I’ll yell things that confuse children and I’ll get looks from people for clapping loudly and I’ll truly appreciate the most beautiful game on earth and I’ll be completely content with everything in my life, if only for a few hours.

This week’s Sports Illustrated has a nice feature on Garrett Grayson. The story isn’t online yet, but here’s how it looked in the magazine. (Magazines are things made out of paper that people used to subscribe to and purchase at stores. You can read them without any electronics.)

Welcome to the 103rd edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I have an abbreviated/condensed post this week for a variety of non-blog related reasons. (And happy birthday to my brother Andrew, who I think pretends to read this blog like once a month.) Let’s get into it…

Sam Dekker prepares to hug an invisible person after his unbelievable second-half shooting performance lifted Wisconsin over Arizona and into the Final Four. (Robert Hanashiro/USA Today Sports)

I’ll start with some quick thoughts on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament, because it was awesome.

Thursday evening through Sunday evening represented college basketball at its absolute peak. The weekend was loaded with legendary coaches and future-lottery picks and underdogs and back-and-fourth games and dramatic finishes.

Saturday, in particular, featured two of the best games a college basketball fan can ask for. It started with Arizona and Wisconsin, who I think are two of the best three teams in the country. They met in a classic that saw Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker combine for 56 points against a top-3 defense. Dekker hit five threes in the second half and was a blast to watch (even though I picked Arizona to win the title). Right when you thought one was a dagger, Arizona would come back, only to see Dekker bury another dagger with a hand in his face. It was just awesome basketball.

Here’s Dekker’s final nail in the coffin to seal Wisconsin’s second straight Final Four appearance. Look at the arc on this shot and Dekker’s swag strut after it drops.

And that game was just a precursor to the game of the year on Saturday night. Notre Dame and Kentucky went back and forth for 40 minutes with a Final Four berth and a historic, undefeated season on the line. (Those are some pretty high stakes.)

The Irish showed from the outset they could play with Kentucky and weren’t about to back down with plays like this one from Pat Connaughton (who also made one the best plays of the opening weekend):

And look at the scores and clock during these next couple Vines. Just an extremely high level of basketball with so much on the line. Aaron Harrison would show his ONIONS…

And Jerian Grant would answer…

Goodness what a great game. Kentucky won, by the way. Wish I had more time to break it down here.

So now only three games remain in the college basketball season and they should all be pretty damn good. Wisconsin – Kentucky should be another absolute treat to watch. As far as predictions, give me Wisconsin over Duke in the championship game Monday night.

I think Wisconsin can handle Kentucky’s defense by limiting possessions and draining deep threes. If Dekker plays against Kentucky like he did against a smaller, but almost-as-efficient Arizona defense, the Badgers can pull off the upset. They also have that Frank Kaminsky guy, who is the best player in the country. He should stretch out some of the Cats’ interior defenders and also be able finish inside and get to the line.

Should be an absolute treat. And that’s just the one of the three games!

A couple of the weekly departments…

Stud of the week:

This video only has 400 views for some reason, but I find it amazing. That’s Detroit Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy just wandering around on an airplane that’s… you know, flying through the sky.

And we have a post-publish submission sent in by a loyal reader! Pretty sweet move here…

Douche of the week:

Guys, all of the Rockies’ pitchers are getting hurt before the season even starts this year. It’s astounding. (More on all this next week.)

Photo of the week:

TJ McConnell hugs Sean Miller and cries as he leaves his final college game. McConnell was one of my favorite players in the country.

(Getty Images)

Vine of the week:

Blake Griffin has gotten bored with his 360 dunks:

NBA Tank Watch 2015:

Not much movement in the Tankandings this week. The Nuggets were able to move one half game ahead of Detroit for the seventh-worst record, which is nice. However, I haven’t seen anything from the Melvin Hunt-coached Nuggets to suggest they’re capable of holding on to that spot.

And finally, because of my time/motivation constraints this week, I asked my buddy Erick, who spends more time on YouTube than anyone should, for a video to use in this “And finally” section. He replied with a link to this video and emphatically noted that it is a top-5 video of all time.

Erick is a damn weirdo.

Happy Tuesday everybody. I should have more for you next week with some sort of Rockies/MLB Preview. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

***

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

Welcome to the 102nd edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where we only play the piccolo and cry when there’s no one else around. Let’s get into it…

(USATSI)

The best four days in sports kicked off Thursday morning at 10 and wrapped up Sunday night at about 10. Those 84 hours saw 48 basketball games that ended 48 teams’ seasons before they were ready. Things started off with a bang when two 14-seeds upset a pair of teams that many predicted would make the Final Four. So for a while it looked like we were heading for four days of wild and crazy bonkers-ness. But the next three and a half days fizzled a little bit and produced a weekend that was, on the whole, actually pretty bland. Last year in my recap of the tournament’s opening weekend I wrote about a wild Thursday, saying:

…And this year’s NCAA Tourney Thursday might have been the best NCAA Tourney Thursday ever. Four of the 16 games went to overtime, which has never happened before. Four of the twelve regulation games were decided at the buzzer or in the final minute. So literally half of the games on Thursday came down to the final seconds. Three double-digit seeds won. Three more choked away a would-be victory. Colorado was embarrassed…

It was a glorious, unbelievable day.

This year failed to produce a day that came close to that. Those two crazy upsets that sent Iowa State and Baylor home on Thursday turned out to be a misnomer. Saturday, for example, had only two games decided by fewer than 8 points (though Butler-Notre Dame did go to overtime and NC State upset 1-seeded Villanova by three points). Sunday was even worse with zero games being decided by less than six points.

There were some upsets, sure. But in terms of wild, thrilling, did-you-see-that finishes, the weekend certainly underwhelmed.

Now, to be clear, an underwhelming opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament is still better than most any other sporting event. I enjoyed plenty of fun and awesome and memorable and exciting moments of college basketball from Thursday morning through Sunday night.

Here are my favorites:

The best moment of the tournament’s opening weekend came on Thursday afternoon, just a few hours after it all started. Here’s a quick background: 14-seed Georgia State is down by two to 3-seed Baylor in the game’s final seconds. A few days prior, when Georgia State clinched their tourney invite, head coach Ron Hunter tore his Achilles during the team’s celebration, so he’s coaching this game on a little wheeley-stool-type-thing with big ol’ cast on his foot/leg. His son is Georgia State’s best player, R.J. Hunter, a future first-round NBA draft pick. With the game on the line, the younger Hunter buried an unreal three from about 25 feet out. His injured coach/dad was stoked and produced an all-time great Vine that I’ve watched approximately 500 times.

I like the wide angle better, but the close-up of Hunter is also pretty awesome:

So that was the tournament’s best moment to date. This next one from Saturday night was the most “viral”:

Obviously, the internet was going to have some fun with this one. Here’s my favorite edit:

And within 48 hours she was on the nation’s most popular late night talk show. What a world.

Notre Dame’s Pat Connaughton might have made the play of the tournament with this sick block of a shot that would have won the game for Butler. Absolutely awesome video here.

This is a remarkably underrated Vine from Friday evening. Every time I come across it, I stop and watch it like twenty times.

Before the real tournament even started, we had this moment from Wednesday night’s play-in game. Getting pantsed is cool, but check out the cheerleaders’ reaction:

One of the coolest things about the tournament is fans getting the opportunity to watch players they haven’t seen much throughout the year. For me, this player was D’Angelo Russell. I’ve known for a while that Russell is going to be a top-5 pick, but for whatever reason, I just haven’t been able to watch him a whole lot this year. Ohio State didn’t make it out of the opening weekend, but Russell was a one-man highlight reel.

And check this no-look dime.

And of course, I spent last week ranting and raving about Colorado State’s snub and the ludicrous inclusion of UCLA. It was the most-read post I’ve had in a while. So what happens next? Naturally, Colorado State, the #1 overall seed in the NIT, loses at home to South Dakota State and UCLA makes the Sweet 16.

I would like to take a moment to emphasize one point: A team’s performance, good or bad, in either the NIT or the NCAAs does nothing to merit the selection committee’s decision. Those decisions are made on what’s been done, not a team’s projected in performance in a separate tournament.

UCLA and Texas could both make the Final Four with CSU immediately losing in the NIT and that would still not justify the committee’s inclusion of those brands over a more deserving team.

And I can’t really blame CSU for coming out flat for what turned out to be their last game of the year. They were emotionally drained. They lacked focus and energy, especially early. And that’s all fair. Not overly surprising. Not something I’m going to fault them for.

An opportunity for some decent national exposure (had they gotten to play in Madison Square Garden) went down the drain, but if we’re honest we know that nobody gives a damn about the NIT. CSU’s season truly ended on Selection Sunday.

Off to the weekly departments…

Douche of the week:

A few weeks ago I ranked Allie LaForce pretty high on my Swoon Index (#5, but that might have been too low). So naturally, I AM NOT DOWN WITH THIS.

Ron Hunter hugs his son as he comes out of his last game of the year. (USATSI)

I just put this in here because Fred VanVleet is probably my favorite player in the country. (Getty)

‘

Tweet(s) of the week:

A couple Las Vegas hotels tweeted out some pretty funny videos of a meaningless layup in the final seconds of the VCU – Ohio State game. VCU is down by five, and throws in a layup at the buzzer so the Rams only lose by three. This made a bunch of people happy.

This post is a little shorter than a lot of other weeks because it took me about two full days to recover from a concert I attended late on Saturday night (and into Sunday morning)*.

*Not that I was, like, wasted. I’ve learned from experience that concerts are more fun when you remember them.

I’m told I started listening to Garth Brooks when I was about four years old and I do remember the cassette of his self-titled debut album always kicking around in my dad’s car. So saying I grew up with Garth Brooks is not at all an exaggeration. I have the hard copies of eight or nine of Garth’s albums with a few other downloads peppered in. I honestly think I know every word to every song on every one of those albums.

Garth was “retired” by the time I started going to concerts and prior to this week, he hadn’t played in Denver since I was eight years old. So by the time I truly learned to appreciate and enjoy his music, I had come to the realization that I would probably never be lucky enough to see him play live. So saying I’ve waited pretty much my whole life to see Garth Brooks, that too, is not at all an exaggeration.

I’ve known that much of Garth’s astounding success is due to his live shows and I’ve seen plenty of YouTube’d or DVR’d concerts. But at the risk of repeating what 25 people have already put in your Facebook feed, it was pretty damn awesome.

Singing along as Garth let the crowd take over on Unanswered Prayers (like I’ve done while listening to Double Live hundreds of times)was worth double the price of admission. But so was screaming the live-only third verses on The Thunder Rolls and Friends In Low Places (like I’ve done while listening toDouble Live hundreds of times.)

And, damn, it was loud. I have definitely never been to a concert that was as loud as the Pepsi Center was between every song. It was probably the loudest I’ve ever heard that place, which is saying something.

Garth will do a little of the corny, you-guys-are-the-best-crowd-yet stuff that may make you might roll your eyes. But that’s just Garth being Garth. He plays to the crowd and does it well. Overall though, Garth sings the songs you want to hear and does it with the passion and energy that’s made him a zillion dollars over the past quarter-century, even if it’s his second show of the night and it’s well past 1 a.m. on Sunday morning.

And I know this is an original opinion, but it’s pretty damn awesome.

NBA Tank Watch 2015:

The Nuggets continue to choke this thing away. They’ve held steady in the 8-spot of the Tankandings, and it looks pretty clear that played themselves out of a high lottery pick, which is kind of astounding when you think about how bad they were and how little they cared under Brian Shaw..

New York, .197, 14-57

Minnesota, .229, 16-54

Philadelphia, .243, 17-53

L.A. Lakers, .265, 18-50

Orlando, .306, 22-50

Sacramento, .348, 24-45

Detroit, .371, 26-44

Denver, .380, 27-44

Some links I enjoyed and you should too:

I failed to link this last week but this story from Matt Norlander on a former Butler Bulldog’s brush with death and survival is an excellent read.

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

Welcome to the 101st edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I am NOT TAKING THINGS WELL. Let’s get into it… (I suppose I should warn you about a little uncharacteristically coarse language in this one.)

Almost exactly two years ago, I published my first edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, titled “Did Colorado State Deserve A Better Seed And A Better Matchup?”. A couple days prior to that posting, the NCAA Tournament selection committee screwed Colorado State badly with an 8-seed that forced them to play the number one overall seed in the second round in what amounted to a true road game. It was pretty clear CSU deserved much better. Two years later, the committee completely, thoroughly outdid itself.

Over the course of this college basketball season the Colorado State Rams did more than enough to secure an NCAA Tournament bid. They didn’t get one on Selection Sunday because the selection committee is able to simply alter the criteria required for an at-large bid if the outcome favors a popular brand name at the expense of a team that’s lesser known nationally.

Make no mistake, that’s all this was. It’s extremely simple, really. The committee favored brand names. Sure, it’s about the conference affiliation. Sure, it’s about how well a team’s fan base will travel. Sure, it’s about the tradition of a program. But all of that contributes to a brand name. And this year, the selection committee based their “bubble” selections entirely– ENTIRELY– on brand names.

And that is fucking bullshit.

The NCAA Tournament is the center of the sports world when it comes Cinderella stories (THE SLIPPER STILL FITS!) and David taking down Goliath. The success of schools few casual basketball fans are familiar with is what provides much of the March Madness hype every year. But those romantic themes and story lines lose a lot of luster when the “little guy” can’t even get into the damn tournament. How is the scrawny nerd supposed to hook up with hot chick if the bouncers don’t let him into the bar?

The thing is, CSU basketball isn’t really that little of a guy. The Mountain West is an upper-level mid-major. This isn’t Murray State from the Ohio Valley pleading in vain for an at-large bid. CSU was in line to earn their third at-large bid in four years. They have a well-respected head coach who has been around forever. They are firmly on the college basketball map.

But Colorado State is not a BRAND. Indiana is a brand. Ole Miss is a brand. Georgia is a brand. Texas is a brand. UCLA– ohhh fucking UCLA— is a brand.

The NCAA makes a seed list that ranks every team in the tournament from 1-68. The bottom of the at-large field looks like this:

37. Indiana

38. Davidson

39. Ohio State

40. Georgia

41. Texas (!)

42. UCLA (!)

43. Ole Miss

44. BYU

45. Boise State

46. Dayton

Dayton was the last at-large team selected. The committee has made it clear the first team out was Temple, followed, presumably, by Colorado State. So had the list been extended before adding automatic qualifiers, it would have looked like this:

47. Temple

48. Colorado State

This is utterly absurd on so many levels. Dayton should have been comfortably in the field and far from the last team in. How in the hell is Indiana ahead of Ohio State?! You could make the argument that Georgia, a team with ZERO top-50 wins and two sub-100 losses, should have been on the outside looking in, yet there they are with SIX teams behind them in the seed list. How does Boise State get sent to a play-in game against Dayton, IN DAYTON?! Texas doesn’t deserve a spot at all, and they have FIVE teams behind them. And then, of course, you have UCLA who wasn’t even on ANYBODY’S radar, and they’re chilling at 42 without a care in the world.

The biggest retort to all of this discussion will be Whatever, man. CSU should have played a tougher nonconference schedule. Well, let’s take a look at this argument.

But these teams are all in good conferences, so they don’t have to load up in the nonconference schedule right? Well, kinda. All of these schools’ overall strength of schedule was launched significantly ahead of CSU once everybody played a full slate of conference games. So they all definitely deserve credit for playing in a tougher conference, especially when the Mountain West was down a little bit this year. But how much credit does each team really deserve for their conference play? Texas finished 8-10 in the Big 12. Georgia and Ole Miss both finished 11-7 in the weak-ass SEC. Indiana finished 9-9 in the Big 10.

Indeed, the argument for the tournament’s inclusion of the Texas brand is they played a very tough schedule. They played 15 games vs. top-50 opponents. FIFTEEN! That’s a lot! But Texas went just 3-12 vs. the top-50. My math tells me that’s not a very good track record against good teams. Why are we so devoted to rewarding teams for losing to superior opponents? This is such a flawed logic. Put those 12 top-50 games that Texas lost on CSU’s schedule and I guarantee you– GUARANTEE!– that CSU can go at least 0-12 like the Longhorns did.

Then there’s UCLA. Again, this team brand wasn’t on anybody’s radar as a potential tournament team brand. They weren’t even on the bubble. Then they got in, somehow.

When comparing UCLA’s body of work with CSU’s, it’s clear that the two resumes are not even close. CSU has seven more wins, CSU’s RPI is 19 spots higher, UCLA has two more sub-100 losses. And as this tweet points out, Colorado State lost to one non-tournament team all year. UCLA lost to FIVE different teams that didn’t make the field. And again, UCLA didn’t just make the field, they made the field COMFORTABLY!

Take this moronic tweet from ESPN’s Jay Williams, one of the few national voices dumb enough to support Colorado State’s snub:

Difficult deal for CSU but the committee made the right move. CSU had 16 wins vs sub 150 rpi teams. @ESPNCBB

By the time the conference tournaments come and go, every team on or near the bubble has plenty of warts and misgivings attached to their resume. The traditional line of thinking says that if you don’t get in, you only have yourself to blame. You can argue about seeding, but if you don’t even make the field, that’s on you. This is especially true in the 68-team era of today. With Colorado State, bracketology-expert-guy Patrick Stevens disagrees:

Colorado State is probably the first team in the 68-team era that genuinely got jobbed in terms of inclusion.

Of course, the committee has to come up with something to justify keeping the CSU brand (or lack thereof) out of the tournament. It sounds like it found the one weak spot associated with this year’s CSU team and keyed in on that. The Rams’ weak spot is… the Kenpom rankings. Kenpom is an advanced ranking system using, among other things, adjusted efficiency statistics. CSU’s Kenpom ranking this year didn’t line up with the rest of their resume. They ranked 68th.

Here’s the chairman of the committee, Scott Barnes, as quoted in the Coloradoan: “When you think about Colorado State, their RPI was fairly strong but the other metrics that we use weren’t nearly as high in terms of ranking.” He’s obviously referring to Kenpom, or Sagarin (CSU ranks 57th) or BPI (also 57th).

But this leaves Colorado State fans (and coaches and players) screaming something along the lines of: SINCE WHEN HAS THAT SHIT MATTERED?!

For years, coaches at mid-major programs have been told to get their RPI up. We’ve all been told the RPI is a crucial tool for the selection committee, even if we’ve known the formula is antiquated and not a solid way of ranking the best teams in the country. So what does the committee do when a mid-major like CSU combines clever scheduling and a lot of wins to produce an excellent RPI that essentially guarantees tournament entry?

It decides that, in this case, the RPI is no longer important.

Yeah, now– NOW– it’s time to move on from the RPI and use more complex ranking systems. That pretty fucking coincidental timing, if you ask me.

Colorado State was projected by every single bracket-projector-person to be in the field for a reason. Jerry Palm and Joe Lunardi and Patrick Stevens aren’t picking their favorite teams or the teams they think are deserving. They are projecting what the committee will do. The committee has a set of guidelines to use. They have historical tendencies from previous tournaments. And every single person that studies and projects brackets for a living deduced that said tendencies and guidelines meant CSU was in. What all the bracket experts and analysts failed to consider was that the committee can ignore their guidelines and tendencies whenever they want if it serves a bigger and better brand name.

And for the love of all that is holy, WOULD YOU ASSCLOWNS JUST ADMIT THAT CONFERENCE AFFILIATION DOES MATTER? You were never going to take four teams from the Mountain West; it would be great if you could just acknowledge that.

I’m also tired of hearing people play the “what-if” game. CSU let one slip at Boise in January. CSU shouldn’t have lost at home to Wyoming. CSU should have played JJ Avila against San Diego State. If a school like CSU wants in, they need to win their conference tournament.

This is all bullshit. CSU didn’t need to do any of those things. They did enough. They were in.

That’s the bottom line for me: CSU did enough to get into the tournament. They did more than enough. And the committee found a way to keep them out. Whether that was a sudden, newfound emphasis with very peculiar timing on advanced metrics like Kenpom or a focus on conference RPI and keeping the number of Mountian West teams to a minimum, they simply found a way to keep them out. And they did it because they wanted bigger, better brand names in the tournament.

If you believe for one damn second that if the roles were reversed and UCLA or Texas was considered by all the bracketology experts and analysts to be comfortably in the field the way CSU was, and if CSU was considered a longshot bubble team like UCLA or Texas were… If you believe for one damn second that the committee would have balls to shock everyone and put CSU ahead of those brands, you are absolutely insane.

And it’s pretty depressing to think about those details. When you consider that CSU isn’t in a fair fight and there is nothing that they or their fans can do about it except start cussing in blogs, it makes you question the the whole operation.

What’s the point? Why should I invest so much into such a rigged system?

The NCAA Tournament, The Big Dance, and March Madness are my three favorite sporting events of the year, every year. The only thing that comes close, for me, is the MLB Postseason. But even the best Octobers can’t hold a candle to the ceaseless fun, intensity, and overall craziness the first four days of March Madness brings.

But on Sunday we learned, in no uncertain terms, that March Madness is more fun, intense, and crazy if you have a brand name attached to that resume. Then you might actually get to participate.

Off to the weekly departments (which are admittedly a little rushed this week)…

NBA Tank Watch 2015!

The Nuggets continue to absolutely screw everything up in the worst way by winning games. They’ve fallen to the 8th spot in the Tankandings.

And here’s something to distract the CSU basketball fans. Another episode of “The Grind.” Still really well done.

And finally, Deadspin brought this video to my attention. After the way my week went, it’s very necessary viewing.

Happy Tuesday everybody. Thanks for reading. See ya next week.

***

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.

Welcome to the 100th edition of Tuesdays With Mitch, where I’m providing my vast audience with free entertainment for the 100th consecutive Tuesday. Let’s get into it…

I tried to come up with something special or wild or crazy to do for my 100th post today. I think I pretty much failed in that regard. But thinking about reaching the most significant milestone in the history of the internet led to some reflecting on what I’m doing here each week and why I do it.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve published a Tuesdays With Mitch over the past two years… I’d have five dollars. But I don’t. I don’t have any dollars. This blog has produced zero nickels.

But I suppose that’s okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather get paid to do this kind of stuff than do it for zero nickels. And there are a lot of Monday nights that come after long, sometimes hungover Monday days when I sit down with my laptop and really don’t want to take the time and energy to produce another seemingly pointless post.

But overall these silly posts give me an outlet to write, which is something I still enjoy doing. They keep me entertained. They give me something to focus on and keep me sane, because my real-life job is about as uninteresting as it gets.

It’s been interesting to see what hits and what doesn’t. It’s been interesting to develop some little Twitter/blogoshpere niches, where certain groups of people respond in certain ways to certain posts. What do people like? What do people share? What do people gloss over?

With this theme in mind, I’d like to take this opportunity during the TUESDAYS WITH MITCH 100TH EDITION SPECTACULAR! to ask you, the person reading this sentence right now, what style or theme of these posts you like the most. Do you like when I write a whole bunch of insightful and intelligent words about Colorado State or the Rockies? Do you like when I just write a little bit and put a bunch of random funny crap from the internet in here (you know, people falling down and getting hit in the nuts and making a fool of themselves on the news and such)? Do you like when I write a bunch and try to be funny and probably fail most of the time? When I talk about baseball, should I talk about WAR and FIP and wRC+ or poetically describe the smell of the hops at the Sandlot Brewery and the voices of the street vendors selling me a $2 bag of salty peanuts? Do you read most of these on a computer or your phone? Should I stop doing this forever so you are no longer obligated to politely feign interest? Are you a professional in the sports media industry who would like to give me a job doing something I enjoy and am maybe actually kind of good at, so each one of my weekdays is not a dire clock of meaningless, bland, gray hours without an end in sight for the next 40 years, causing me to wake up one day at 65 and wonder where my life has gone and why I haven’t achieved anything?

Sorry, that last one was a bit off topic.

But anyway, let me know if you have any feedback on that stuff. You can comment at the bottom of this page or– like a lot of you already do– my Facebook or Twitter accounts.

In the spirit of reminiscing, I thought about some of my favorite posts that have come along over the past 100 weeks. So here is my list of Tuesdays With Mitch, Ranked:

“Why Todd Helton Will Forever Be My Favorite Athlete“. This is probably the best thing I’ve ever written. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed writing this more than any other post (or anything I’ve written in general). I believe it has generated the most views of any of these 100 posts.

I’m not going to recap my favorite videos, Vines, GIFs, etc. of the previous 99 posts today because I did a bunch of that in my Two-PartYear In Review just a couple months ago. But overall, the last couple years have produced some fun stuff in my tiny, obscure corner of the internet. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed some of my writing. Hopefully you’ve watched a game or seen a dumb video and wondered to yourself if that would make Mitch’s blog on Tuesday. Hopefully you’ve laughed a bit. Hopefully you’ve been entertained.

Thanks for reading these each week, or sporadically, or whenever you get the urge to click on a link that takes you here.

As I was putting this together on Monday night, I came across this tweet. It’s a quote from Sam Simon, one of the creators of the greatest television show in history. He died Monday. His quote seems fitting.

The Rams were down eight points with under nine minutes remaining. The arena was sold out and raucous. It was Stew Morrill’s last game at the Spectrum after 17 years. Things were bleak.

But CSU proverbially grabbed their proverbial nuts and fought back to win and finish the regular season 26-5, 13-5 in the Mountain West. That’s a really good record!

One could make the argument that this was CSU’s best win of the season. Better than San Diego State at home. Better than Colorado in Boulder. The Rams had to have this one and they found a way to pull it out. And they did it in spite of a poor performance from Daniel Bejerano. As I’ve said before, when Bejerano doesn’t score, the Rams usually lose. It helped that J.J Avila was unbelievable with 29 points, 13 rebounds, five steals, and four assists. The quality of opponent has been low, but Avila has been an absolute monster the past month or so.

Up next is the Mountain West tournament in Las Vegas. The Rams are the 3-seed and play Fresno State at 9:30 on Thursday. Should they win that one, they’ll (probably) play San Diego State at 9:30 on Friday. The winner of that game plays in the championship (likely either Utah State, Wyoming or Boise State) at 4 on Saturday.

So CSU is playing well heading into a tournament that gives them a chance to pick up two more wins against top-40 RPI opponents (should they play both San Diego State and Boise State). A win in those games would give their NCAA seeding a huge boost. As of right now, the Rams are solidly in the tournament. A first-round loss to Fresno would quickly move them back to the bubble, though I’m not overly concerned about that. Selection Sunday is five days away!

March is upon us. And that’s awesome because February sucks. But it’s also awesome because The Madness has arrived.

Off to the weekly departments…

NBA TANK WATCH 2015:

Last week when I introduced TANK WATCH! on the same day the Nuggets fired Brian Shaw and named Melvin Hunt the interim head coach, I noted that the worst thing Hunt could do is get the Nuggets to start winning games. Apparently he didn’t read my 99th post. The Nuggets are 3-2 since Hunt took over. Two of those three foolish wins came over teams ahead of them in the Tankandings in New York and Minnesota. The updated TANK WATCH! looks like this:

New York, 12-50, .194

Philadelphia, 14-49, .222

Minnesota, 14-47, .230

L.A. Lakers, 16-46, .258

Orlando, 21-43, .328

Sacramento, 21-41, .339

Denver, 23-41, .359

Detroit, 23-39, .371

So after a very unproductive week, the Nuggets have fallen to the 7th spot in the Tankandings. Catching Orlando and the Lakers seems to be slipping out of reach. The best the Nuggets can probably hope for now is holding off Detroit and taking the 6th spot back from Sacramento. The Nugs have 18 games left this year.

Studs of the week:

Steph Curry is, without a doubt, the most entertaining show in the NBA right now. He had a highlight-filled week. We’ll start with this pass.

Pretty awesome, but that was just the appetizer for this ridiculous, silly, stupid, unreal, awesome play on Sunday afternoon, which I’m presenting in both GIF and Vine forms:

Deadspin

…and the Vine:

Vine(s) of the week:

This is the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in a basketball game in years and years and years. I’ve watched this about 100 times and can’t stop laughing. Otto Porter kind of spaced out for a few seconds while covering Tony Snell…

The latest in hilarious bench antics, this one coming from Texas:

One of the great endings from Saturday was this Oklahoma game-winner:

That crazy Oklahoma finish was quickly outdone by this game-winning ONIONS shot from Belmont to upset Murray State and go dancing.

Photo of the week:

John Lollar of Murray State and his interesting leg kick. (It looks like this on video.)

Zac Brown Band will play at Coors Field this summer. I love ZBB, but I find this more interesting because I don’t think I can recall The Keg hosting an actual, big-time concert. They’ve done some small ones after games, but nothing like this, right? Anybody?

And finally, okay I couldn’t resist putting a couple random favorites from the past couple years in here.

(NFSW, lots of F-bombs in this one)

I love the internet so damn much.

Happy Tuesday everybody. Enjoy all the basketball this week. Thanks for reading. Seriously, thank you. See ya next week. Here’s to 100 more. Or maybe now is a good time for me to stop doing these forever. Either way.

***

Comment on any of this stuff below, or email me at mdhahn1@yahoo.com with post ideas, videos or other media I should know about. Subscribe at the top right of this page. Follow me on Twitter @TuesWithMitch.